In 2000, Cedar produced his first film - Time of Favor - for which he actually lived in an Israeli settlement for two years. The film won 6 Israeli academy awards including Best Picture.

Cedar's third film, Beaufort, a drama/action movie about an IDF unit in the Beaufort fortress in southern Lebanon at the end of Israel's occupation in 2000, received the Silver Bear award for Best Director in the Berlin International Film Festival
and recieved a nomination for 2008 Best Foreign Language Film at the American Academy Awards, the Oscars.

In 2011, Cedar's film Footnote won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and also received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Academy Awards. Footnote revolves around a power struggle between a father and son who teach in the Talmud department of the Hebrew University.

Cedar, an Orthodox Jew, currently lives in Tel Aviv with his wife Vered and his three children.